1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk drive device that records and/or reproduces information signals to/from an optical disk. More specifically, the present invention relates to a disk drive device of a so-called slot-in type in which an optical disk is automatically mounted when directly inserted into the device body.
2. Description of the Related Art
As optical disks, optical disks such as a CD (Compact Disk), a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk), and a BD (Blue-ray Disk), and magneto-optical disks such as an MO (Magneto optical) and an MD (Mini Disk) are widely known in the art. Various disk drive devices adapted to handle these disks, disk cartridges, and the like have appeared on the market.
There are various types of disk drive device, such as one in which a lid or a door provided in the housing is opened, and a disk is directly mounted onto a turntable exposed from the lid or the door, one in which a disk is placed on a disk tray that is horizontally taken in and out of the housing so that the disk is automatically mounted onto a turntable inside the housing when the disk tray is drawn into the housing, and one in which a disk is directly mounted onto a turntable provided on the disk tray. However, either one of these types of disk drive device requires the operator to perform an operation of opening and closing the lid or the door, taking the disk tray in and out, or mounting the disk onto the turntable.
On the other hand, there is a disk drive device of a so-called slot-in type in which an optical disk is automatically mounted onto a turntable simply by inserting the optical disk from a disk slot provided on the front of the housing. Examples of such a slot-in type disk drive device include one that has a pair of mutually opposed guide rollers that nip the optical disk inserted from the disk slot therebetween. The pair of guide rollers are rotated in opposite directions, thereby performing a loading operation of drawing the optical disk inserted from the disk slot into the housing and an eject operation of ejecting the optical disk to the outside of the housing from the disk slot.
There is a demand for a further reduction in the size, weight, and thickness of mobile devices such as a notebook-type personal computer to which a disk drive device is mounted. Hence, there is also an increasing demand for a corresponding reduction in the size, weight, and thickness of disk drive devices. In view of such circumstances, as an example of slot-in type disk drive device, there has been put on the market a disk drive device having arranged therein a plurality of rotary arms each having at its distal end an abutting portion, which is brought into abutment with the outer peripheral portion of a disk inserted from the disk slot of the front panel, and whose proximal end is rotatably supported in position. While rotating these rotary arms within a plane parallel to the disk, the disk drive device performs a loading operation of drawing the disk into the housing and an eject operation of ejecting the disk to the outside of the housing from the disk slot (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-100595). Among those disk drive devices thus reduced in thickness, there have been also proposed, as examples of ultra-thin disk drive device to be mounted in a notebook-type personal computer or the like, a disk drive device with a thickness of 12.7 mm, and a disk drive device whose thickness is reduced to 9.5 mm that is equivalent to the thickness of a hard disk drive (HDD) unit.
In such a disk drive device in which a plurality of rotary arms are arranged and which performs a disk loading operation and a disk eject operation while rotating the plurality of rotary arms within a plane parallel to the disk, at the time of inserting the disk, the rotary arms are urged in the ejecting direction of the disk by an urging member such as a torsion coil spring, thereby performing insertion of the disk into the housing while applying an urging force in the disk ejecting direction. Upon inserting the disk into the housing by a predetermined amount, a drive mechanism is activated, drawing the disk further deep into the housing. At the time of ejecting the disk, the rotary arms are rotated in the ejecting direction by the drive mechanism, thereby conveying the disk to the outside of the housing.